


and sometimes you close your eyes and see the place where you used to live

by DoctorBlazeIt



Category: Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: (don't smoke kids), Denial of Feelings, M/M, Pining, Post Manga, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28490769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorBlazeIt/pseuds/DoctorBlazeIt
Summary: For Yuki, growing older meant collecting some bad habits, like smoking, or falling in love with your best friend.
Relationships: Background Honda Tohru/Sohma Kyo, Manabe Kakeru/Sohma Yuki
Comments: 14
Kudos: 52





	and sometimes you close your eyes and see the place where you used to live

**Author's Note:**

> fruits basket was baby's first anime/manga/fanfic experience back in ye olde 2006, so it was a serious comfort to rediscover it during this past shitty, shitty year. it only makes sense that i would also rediscover my humiliating weakness for the music of the killers, which is why this is titled like a tumblr fic circa 2012.

Yuki started “borrowing” cigarettes from Kakeru at the beginning of their second term at university, when the air was still hot and sticky from the long summer months. 

He was newly single: Machi had ended things when he’d visited home during the break, which wasn’t exactly the gut-punch he might’ve once expected ( _“I’m sorry,”_ she’d said, eyes all big and serious, “ _I’m sorry,_ _but it just…isn’t romantic, the way I feel about you,”_ —and boy, if _that_ didn’t sound familiar). At first, there had been a dull ache, from the rejection if nothing else; it was quickly washed out by a strange sense of relief. They left on good terms, in the end.

Yuki liked being a university student, mostly. Their coursework was only about as trying as expected; that wasn’t new. But these days he felt a new, unfamiliar  _ buzzing _ , like a vibration in his limbs, around his head, almost painful. It was the restless, gaping feeling of a world wide open to him for the first time. Yuki had never dreamed of such a beautiful burden. 

His newfound absolute freedom still often panicked him, in a way it hadn’t when they were all still living at Shigure’s house before graduation. Sometimes he just  _ felt _ too much, his choices too vast and weighty, stretched out before him like an ocean, unending and indifferent. He’d be in the middle of class or lying in bed and it was like his heart was dropping out of his body, floating in the void, until he blinked a few times and found himself back to himself. He suspected that if he were truly alone, he’d have drowned already.

But he wasn’t alone, because there was Kakeru. He was there even when Yuki wished he wasn’t. Loud, brash, rude, warm, affectionate, and always so incredibly human. One of the few people who made Yuki feel human too.

And humans had vices.

Kakeru was stressed about declaring a major: his mother still had “certain wishes” (her words) for his future, but he wanted to just say  _ fuck it _ and study something “cool” (his words). Yuki felt pangs of that same stress as he listened to Kakeru go on, to say nothing of the mixed guilt and resentment a recent terse letter from his own mother had spurred.

(“ _ I hope you haven’t forgotten that you come from an important family with high regard for blah blah blah—.”  _ It was written on tasteful, expensive Sohma stationery. He hadn’t responded.)

It was a warm night out on the cramped balcony of their apartment when Kakeru pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a red plastic lighter. He was finishing off his rant with something particularly shitty his TA had said yesterday.

“Makes me wanna puke,” Kakeru laughed, shaking a cigarette out of the pack with even hands.

If he registered Yuki’s surprise, he didn’t let on. He gave a tilt of his head and an eyebrow, looking like both an idiot and a very sure man, and the question seemed to be:  _ you down? you in? you cool with this?  _

It seemed almost like a test.

And it wasn’t that Yuki was a saint. The two of them would drink socially with their classmates. Yuki knew that some weekends Kakeru would disappear to get mildly more wild with some friends of his who were in a band. He would return to the apartment at wee hours, giggling and knocking over the lamp by the door (every time) and then complaining at length about his hangover the next day until Yuki fixed him coffee. Yuki didn’t  _ love _ the taste of booze or beer, but he understood the appeal. He enjoyed the camaraderie of it— _ craved it _ , if he was being at all honest—and that curious, starving little heart of his burned for more. Truthfully, he was slowly gathering the courage to let loose and go out with Kakeru’s whole group one of these days, just to  _ do _ it. 

So it wasn’t really a question in Yuki’s mind, whether to stay out on the balcony with Kakeru. He had a world of experiences to try.

Kakeru didn’t bother asking Yuki if he wanted his own, or even if he was planning on smoking at all. He just lit up, took a drag, and then casually passed it over to Yuki like he’d done it every day before now (but Yuki would’ve noticed if his roommate had been smoking every day, right?). The smoke was acrid and biting in Yuki’s mouth, and surprisingly not altogether unpleasant; he still started hacking almost immediately after a graceless exhale.

Kakeru smirked, handsome, but it wasn’t cruel. He took the cigarette back from Yuki without a choice remark.

“So when did you start...” Yuki trailed off. He coughed again. He felt disoriented and a little giddy, and he wondered absently if his flushed cheeks were visible in this light.

“Ah, not too long ago,” Kakeru said, but he exhaled through his nose in a quietly showy way, which seemed more expert-level to Yuki. Maybe not, though. Maybe that was just  _ him _ . “Plus, I’m just borrowing them,” he said, winking, “‘cause Saito and those chumps always start chain smoking when we get drunk, and then  _ I _ end up holding everything. Pretty dumb, huh?” 

His grin was so cheeky; maybe that was what made Yuki accept the cigarette when Kakeru offered it again. “Borrowing,” indeed.

They smoked the whole thing, and then another one, taking their time. On that warm, hazy night, Yuki found his gaze drifting to Kakeru’s mouth more often than he was ready to think about. When he lay in bed afterwards, drifting to sleep, he touched his fingers to his own lips, trying not to wonder.

-

They started sharing cigarettes pretty frequently after that. Coursework and expectations grew more stringent as the term went on, which merited smoking and kvetching, but by now Yuki had found that Kakeru was happiest when he had something to whine about anyway. 

Academics aside, Yuki kept pushing himself to be open and social with strangers and new friends, something that inspired more than a little extra anxiety needling in his gut. He accepted invitations to study with the girls in his classes at the library, avoiding the more ardent of their stares. He practiced chatting casually with the baristas at the campus cafe while he learned to like the taste of espresso. He even started joining Kakeru and his rowdier friends on some of their outings, although Yuki tried to maintain—while not  _ full _ sobriety—at least an awareness of his surroundings when things got tipsy-turvy. He still found himself nervous and bracing when they entered packed bars or restaurants. Old habits were hard to break, after all.

New habits, on the other hand, were formed rather easily.

It was easy to join Kakeru when he lit up during their late night study sessions, or on the walk home from Kakeru’s work. It was easy to accept a cigarette after an emotionally draining, interaction-heavy day. And it was  _ so _ easy to smoke when they were drunk.

Sure, Yuki knew it wasn’t the healthiest choice a young man could make. He wasn’t stupid. But he liked how it made him feel, even if the calm that washed over him when he smoked was ultimately artificial—well, and actively harmful. Perhaps all the years of watching Shigure and Hatori (a doctor, for goodness sake) smoke had muddied the waters of what constituted a terrible idea, or simply a bad one.

He hardly noticed when he started taking the occasional solo cigarette, and he certainly didn’t realize when that “occasional” act became a habit, until Kakeru called him out on it.

“Yun-Yun!” he fumed one evening that fall, annoyed but without real heat. “If you keep stealing my cigarettes, you gotta buy new ones! I bought this pack like three days ago and I’m already down to my last smoke. This shit isn’t cheap, y’know!”

Yuki was the one who bought their cigarettes after that, and he realized he now thought of them as  _ their _ cigarettes. Instead of letting himself wonder about that, he focused on building a rapport with the cashier at their local convenience store, an unsmiling woman named Hiroko. She was around his brother’s age and reminded him fondly of Machi. More new experiences, more practice socializing. Sometimes Hiroko-san would slip him one of the pre-wrapped ham sandwiches with his cigarettes and undercharge him, brusquely telling Yuki he was too skinny, that he’d blow away in the wind if he didn’t watch out.

It was nice to feel a little bit mothered. He missed Tohru so much. 

They spoke on the phone once a week or so and had a little snail mail exchange going back and forth, and she was happy, and so was he. But it just wasn’t the same after living together for all of their high school years. He missed the privilege of proximity, of having the endless opportunity to walk into a room and see her smile at him. One of these days, he wanted to try to coach her through a video call, but with her and Kyo both so technologically hopeless, he imagined there’d be little success. The idea of the two of them fiddling with a computer, sitting way too close to the camera, was a pretty amusing scene.

It was on one of their regular phone calls that Tohru learned of Yuki’s secret smoking habit. 

(Well, it wasn’t as if it were a secret he’d created on purpose, nor one he’d consciously hidden from her, but it was a secret all the same.)

“And I wanted to finish it when I got home from work today, but I got so distracted when I saw the snow started falling already!” Tohru was finishing telling him, full of glee. He could just imagine the stars in her eyes. “Oh, and well, it’s not sticking yet or anything. But I’m so excited! Is it snowing for you too?”

“Not yet, Tohru, but I’m sure it will be lovely when it does.” After the first time he called her by her given name, it made no sense to go back to formalities. Even so, Yuki still sometimes flinched hearing it come out of his mouth. “Winter break will be here before I know it, though,” he added, “and Haru told me that Shihan wants to have people over for New Years, since we’re all...”

_ Apart _ . He didn’t finish the sentence; maybe he couldn’t. 

For so long, New Years had been only a source of dread and heartache for Yuki. Last year, when the curse felt still so newly broken even by the time New Years rolled around, everyone had stayed home. Too raw for a celebration, too honestly happy for a funeral. Now, over a year removed, it was allowed to be just a turning of a calendar page, and it could be that for the rest of his life. 

Still, he felt a certain longing thinking about the holiday. He understood Kazuma’s desire to acknowledge that, to gather together the former Zodiac, to try to set a new tradition. A happier memory for them all. For the first time, Yuki had hope that such a thing could really happen. And he actually missed the circus of his family.

“Oh yes!” Tohru gasped on the other end of the phone. “Shishou-san sent us an invitation to stay with him for the holiday! I really,  _ really _ want to! Oh.” He could almost hear her physically deflate. “But, I still don’t know if I can get the days off work, and Kyo-kun has been so busy with the dojo lately, a-and the travel would be expensive, and, well, I just don’t know if we’ll be able to make it work.”

Yuki smiled to himself, knowing Kyo would move heaven and earth to make her wishes come true. He had a feeling he would see them at New Years after all. 

He hadn’t noticed the jangling of keys outside the front door, and barely heard Kakeru cross the threshold, but Yuki jumped when Kakeru obnoxiously dropped his heavy book bag on the table next to him. 

“ _ I’m on the phone _ ,” he hissed, which made Kakeru grin wildly.

“Well come outside for a cigarette when you’re done!” Kakeru said in his always-booming inside voice. “It’s balls cold out there but I haven’t had one all day and Sho is  _ thirsty _ for it!” 

To punctuate, he thrust his idiot hips.

Yuki rolled his eyes, but nodded. “Sorry about that, Tohru. Kakeru is being a pain, as usual,” he said warmly.

The line was quiet. “Yuki-kun,” Tohru said softly after a long beat, “you...do you smoke?”

Just like that, he could feel her horror. He could see, like she was there in front of him, her face falling, her eyes going wide, her forehead wrinkling with worry. He pictured her then with a look on her face he had never actually seen: disappointment. Just the idea of it filled him with more shame than he’d felt since he was a child under Akito’s thumb. 

“I —“ He what? Would he lie to her? “I know it’s a filthy habit,” he said meekly.

“Your bronchial tubes,” Tohru said, her voice catching. The air went quiet for a long few seconds. 

_ Was she crying? Because of him? _

“Are you okay?” she finally asked. She might have been crying but  _ she _ still asked  _ him _ if he was okay.

“Yes,” Yuki said emphatically. “I promise, I’m okay. I haven’t had an asthma attack in a long time, really, Tohru, I’m okay.” 

He could still sense her tension, the tears she was likely trying to hide from him, and it tore at him. 

“And-and I have my inhaler in case anything happens,” he started babbling, “and I really only do it when I’m stressed. But exams will be over soon, and I-I...I can quit. I mean, I  _ will _ quit. I will.”

Tohru didn’t say anything at first. Her voice still sounded shaky when she did. 

“I just worry about you,” she said. 

It broke his heart.

They spoke for a few more minutes after that, after Yuki promised several more times to quit, and Tohru apologized for judging his choices. Her apology, and the clear love behind it, roused even more shame, because he knew— _ of course he knew _ —that she wasn’t wrong to be worried. He missed her even harder than before their phone call.

“So does this mean the fun’s over?” Kakeru said, standing half inside and half on the balcony, despite the cold. His tone was light, but when Yuki turned to look at his face, he was oddly somber. For some reason, this twisted in Yuki’s chest too. 

The whole thing was a situation that called for a fucking cigarette, in Yuki’s opinion.

After that, Yuki didn’t quit, exactly—or at all. But he cut down. He tried. 

Kakeru volunteered not to smoke in the apartment, and they both started drinking too much coffee to supplement one habit with another. All that did was make Yuki even more irritable and restless, so on nights when Kakeru didn’t work, he would make Yuki sit down and watch weird old movies and trashy TV with him for hours into the morning, and Yuki would pretend to be annoyed with it until he fell asleep on Kakeru’s shoulder. 

Habits bred habits. Yuki wasn’t sure yet if this was helping or hurting. 

He still saw Hiroko-san at the convenience store nearly every day. If she was pleased to see him buying more food and less nicotine, she kept it to herself, although she did grant him the odd smile every so often now. He tried to feel proud of baby steps, tried not to crave more than he already did. He tried.

-

Ten days before New Years, Kakeru mentioned in passing he wouldn’t be visiting home. 

“Oh, is Komaki-san coming here, then?” Yuki asked, his nose stuck in his final study guide to keep it away from the cigarette on his bedside table.

“...No, she isn’t.” 

It wasn’t until he heard the front door open and shut that Yuki looked up from his work. He stared at the closed door, and wanted to think nothing of it.

A week before New Years, while the snow drifted down, they sat out on the balcony with their carcinogenic reward ( _ “Just one, Yun-Yun, to celebrate the end of term, just half between the both of us—“ _ ). Yuki was passing Kakeru their cigarette when he heard himself say, “It’s been a while since you’ve seen her.” 

It wasn’t a question.

Kakeru, for once still, looked like marble: handsome and cold. He chuckled, and took a drag. “That’s true,” he said simply. As he passed the cigarette back, his gaze was uncomfortably direct. “Aren’t you going to ask why?”

Their fingers were touching. It was on the tip of his tongue, but Yuki couldn’t ( _ wouldn’t _ ) ask. 

Kakeru looked away first, chuckling again. “Come on man,” he huffed in the cold, “you can’t put two and two together?” 

Four days before New Years, Yuki received an incredibly earnest letter from Tohru. She told him that she would always support him in whatever made him happy, that he was in charge of his own future, that he was one of her dearest friends,  _ however— _ . She pleaded for him to think of his health, even including a message she said she had told her own mother to get Kyoko to quit, the day she came home from middle school after learning what lung cancer was (there was a paragraph of grisly statistics, but thankfully no pictures). 

Tohru ended her letter in her neat little script with more kind, sweet words about what Yuki meant to her, and how terrible the world would be if he weren’t it. He found himself with tears in his eyes, alone in his bedroom in the middle of the afternoon, grateful for her love and sick with guilt. His brain felt like it was trying to pound its way out of his skull, and he wanted a cigarette  _ so fucking badly _ it hurt. He took a few deep breaths and wiped his eyes on his comforter, then noticed the postscript at the bottom of the letter. 

_ PS: Kyo-kun wanted to write something, too! He made me promise not to read it. :) _

Puzzled, Yuki turned the page over. 

_ Smoking’s dumb. Don’t be gross. See ya soon _ .

It was so surprising and so juvenile, he laughed out loud. “Stupid cat,” he said, with something like affection.

-

New Years at Kazuma’s was a mixed success. 

The air inside the house was thick and warm, just this side of smothering. Nearly the whole Zodiac made it, with a few exceptions. Kureno was still off in the countryside, although no longer with Uotani-san (which Yuki only knew about through Tohru). Ritsu, as well, was apparently caring for their mother at the Sohma onsen (again, Yuki had heard through Tohru, who seemed to be pen pals with everybody). The notable, palpable absences belonged to Shigure and Akito. 

Kazuma wore a calm, even smile when he told Yuki that they were celebrating privately at a Sohma vacation house far, far away. Yuki couldn’t tell if it was a kind lie for everyone’s benefit—it’s not like he would’ve known the difference if they were 300 feet away, barely deeper into the Sohma estate—but he was quietly grateful for the distance. Even a year plus removed from the curse, plenty of wounds were still tender. He knew he wasn’t the only one still working through their…everything with Akito, including Akito. 

Still, their empty spaces were felt: a jagged note of sorrow in an otherwise cheerful climate. Yuki wondered if anyone else was thinking about them, but realized quickly that that was a stupid question. 

(It was  _ New Years _ . They were only human.)

Tohru and Kyo made it back for New Years, to no one’s surprise and everyone’s delight. Yuki had missed the actual homecoming; they’d been staying at Kazuma’s for two days, receiving a steady stream of visitors all day long and cooking elaborate meals every night. When Yuki arrived that afternoon, Tohru hugged him as tightly as if she hadn’t seen him in years instead of months, and even Kyo gave him a shy smile, which was a nice surprise. 

Yuki spent the last few hours before the party catching up with Tohru in Kazuma’s kitchen, observing the two of them as they prepared and cooked a celebratory spread. He offered to help, but Kyo jokingly (he hoped) pointed a kitchen knife at him by way of warning; Tohru just laughed and politely refused. So he sat and watched them, asking a few questions, but mostly just listening to Tohru’s fond stories of their life in their little apartment in their little mountain town. It was soothing, the way they moved beside each other in near-perfect harmony the whole time. They both looked older somehow. He wondered how he looked.

That soothing comfort didn’t last long. Yuki didn’t think he’d feel so nervous at the party proper, but he found the beer that Haru slid into his hand the moment he and Rin arrived quickly emptied. He remembered that he hadn’t smoked a cigarette in two full days, and as a spike of anxiety shot through him, he felt the beer rush to his head. His face was flushed, he knew; it happened every time he drank, for which Kakeru gave him never ending shit ( _ “Blushing like a bride! Why, Yun-Yun, you’ll look so beautiful in virgin white!” _ ). Rin smirked at him and Haru poked a finger at his cheek. He swatted at them both.

To distract himself from the gnawing desire for smoke in his lungs, Yuki flitted around the party to say all the hellos to all the cousins he hadn’t seen in months. In addition to Sohmas, whom he’d expected, he was pleasantly surprised to see Kunimitsu and a good number of Kazuma’s old students there as well. Yuki chatted with a few he recognized until he lost his nerve, feeling overwhelmed with interaction. 

As he excused himself from one conversation, he found himself on the receiving end of bruising hugs from Kagura and Momiji, the latter of whom now stood an inch taller than Yuki. After that, he became trapped in an aggressive Q&A with Hiro and Kisa (mostly Hiro) about university life. Hiro rolled his eyes at the rather edited version Yuki unsuccessfully tried to offer. 

“Oh please,” he scoffed, “you think just because we’re young we don’t know what college kids get up to? You don’t have to patronize us, okay?  _ Obviously _ we know you probably drink alcohol and stuff all the time, plus I saw you and Hatsuharu with beers earlier—“

“It was very nice catching up with you, Yuki-niisan,” Kisa said sweetly, quieting Hiro with a hand on his arm.

Yuki drifted into a few more bouts of conversation, slowly sipping a glass of Kazuma’s nice sake to calm his nerves. It was getting late in the evening when he noticed Hatori’s arrival. With him was a short-haired woman who looked like Yuki’s former teacher—no, wait _ —was _ Yuki’s former teacher. 

He blinked and finished his drink.

“You look like you’re having a good time,” Hatori said in lieu of hello. His tone was dry as ever, but when he smiled it was warm and real. He clasped a hand in Yuki’s shoulder. “You have been missed.”

“Why do you have to say that like you’re telling him the patient didn’t make it?” Shiraki-sensei shook her head and sighed, smiling only a shade nervously. “How’s university treating you, Sohma-kun?” she asked. “I thought that Manabe-kun might have driven you nuts by now.”

“Oh—uh. Good.” His brain felt swampy all of a sudden.  _ I guess we just aren’t being weird about this…? _ “I mean—I’m doing well, thank you for asking. And Kakeru is…he’s fine, actually.”

Seeing Hatori made the urge to smoke louder—nearly deafening—in Yuki’s mind. He smelled like it. Or was Yuki just imagining that he did? He felt himself starting to sweat.

His fizzling attention snapped back in time for the second half of whatever Hatori was saying: “...a glass of water before your brother gets here. You could use it.”

_Haha_ , _oh_ _fuck_.

Yuki closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His head really was spinning. “Yes. Thank you. I will.” He spoke slowly, and when he opened his eyes Hatori and Shiraki-sensei were looking at him with bemusement. 

“I think I’ll go get some air,” he said with a forced calm. 

It wasn’t even that Ayame inspired such dread and fatigue in Yuki anymore, only that by his very nature he would almost certainly be the stimulus that sent Yuki over the edge in that moment. He needed to regroup, and fast.

When Yuki excused himself from the two of them, he honestly meant to get some water first—his whole face was still flushed like a ripe plum—but he found he couldn’t bring himself to enter the kitchen. Tohru was in there, her hands clasped around one of Rin’s, saying something in a voice Yuki couldn’t hear. Rin had her other hand pressed against her eyes, and it was clear she was crying. Tohru took her into her arms as Rin shook and crumpled.

Yuki quietly withdrew. He knew he shouldn’t have witnessed the tenderness of such a scene. In his guilt, he wondered if it was New Years bringing this out in Rin, or just the force of Tohru’s love.

He was moving on instinct and anxiety then, barely seeing the house and the dojo around him, devoting all his focus to reaching the outside. The muted  _ click _ of the door sliding shut behind him might as well have been a shout. 

But the crispness of the cold night air was pleasantly sobering. He felt calmer already in the quiet, snow-blanketed yard of the dojo. He made himself take even breaths, in and out, in and out, watching the puffs of warm air dissipate into the night. It was snowing so gently.

_ Maybe this isn’t so bad _ , Yuki thought. He felt a pang of loneliness, despite himself; he wondered what Kakeru was doing, wherever he was. Perhaps he felt a pang of something else, too, something he couldn’t ( _ wouldn’t _ ) put a name to. He still felt heated, even out in the cold.

At that moment, he spotted Kunimitsu at the other end of the yard, holding the tiny burning cherry of a cigarette. Yuki barely blinked, and then he was next to him.

“Yuki-kun!” Kunimitsu said, startled. “I didn’t even notice you walking over, ha! How’re you doing?”

“ _ I’m doing well thank you for asking _ ,” Yuki rushed through, single minded. “Kunimitsu-san, I don’t mean to be rude, and I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t an emergency.  _ But do you happen to have another cigarette? _ ” 

There was a flicker of surprise, but Kunimitsu smiled good-naturedly. “I should be heading back inside anyway, if you don’t mind taking this one,” he offered. 

It was barely smoked. Yuki took it gratefully. 

“ _ Thank you _ ,” he said, with utmost sincerity. 

Yuki hadn’t thought to grab his coat on the way out, but he was still buzzed enough to ignore the cold. He ducked further away from the party, out of the main yard of the dojo and behind a side building. Trembling— _ was he trembling? _ —Yuki brought the cigarette to his lips and flicked alive the lighter he’d been feeling for in his pocket all night.

(He’d decided the day before New Years that he wouldn't bring any cigarettes with him, to temper temptation. Kakeru nodded, told him that it wasn’t a bad idea at all, and smiled with a sad, faraway slant. “ _ See you next year,”  _ he’d said. But he pressed his red plastic lighter into Yuki’s hand when Yuki was leaving with another strange look in his eye. The kind of look that made Yuki wonder about all the things he wouldn’t let himself think about.)

It was pathetic how good that cigarette felt, drunk and anxious in the snow. Yuki forgot where he was. He could feel the cold starting to seep in while he smoked, but he didn’t care. The smell of the smoke flooded his senses and took him back to his apartment with Kakeru, a week before New Years, sitting on that tiny balcony while the snow fell, listening to the soft rumble of their voices and feeling the brush of their fingers every time they passed the cigarette back and forth, imagining how it would feel to—

“Oh, come on,” came a voice. “You’re still doing this?”

Yuki all but jumped. He hadn’t heard Kyo approach at all, like they were sixteen and he was half asleep in the kitchen before school. It took him a beat to remember he still had the cigarette in hand, and another after that to read the look on Kyo’s face: a mix of annoyance, distaste, and disappointment. It stung, worse than Yuki would’ve expected. 

His heart raced, and he felt himself flush again, cut open and exposed. 

“Please don’t tell her,” Yuki said, quiet and pleading. 

He locked eyes with Kyo, and saw not the angry, sneering boy who’d hated him for so many years—who’d screamed at him to disappear on another New Years out in the snow—but a man, really, with heavy thoughts and feelings that he had to carry around all day, just like Yuki. It flashed through his mind, not for the first time, that for all the ways Tohru was like a mother to Yuki, what did that make his relationship to Kyo at this point? It was a line of thinking he tended to avoid; it was just too weird to touch right now. 

Kyo stepped closer. Yuki could see his nose still wrinkled slightly at the smell, but the annoyance was drained from his face. He just looked tired and worried, like an adult.

“I’m not gonna tell her,” Kyo said at last with a shrug. “But I seem to remember  _ somebody _ making big threats about the consequences of breaking Tohru’s heart. And it turns out I’m only stupid enough to do that once.”

Well, shit. Was Kyo good at guilt tripping,  _ and _ kind of funny? When had that happened? Yuki couldn’t help but snort out a laugh, which made Kyo crack a smile. The tension broke, at least for the moment. The snow continued to fall, the night serene again.

“What are  _ you _ doing out here, anyway?” Yuki noticed the half-drunk glass of sake in Kyo’s hand for the first time. “Are crowds still…?”

“Sometimes, yeah,” he said. “I got caught up talking with Shishou’s students, but it just...it made me miss my students, if you can believe it.” Kyo took a drink to cover his small, proud smile, but Yuki saw it anyway. “Tohru’s—uh, she’s helping someone out right now. Not really my place to go with her. And I needed the air.”

They stood together for a minute, silent but not uncomfortable. Yuki let himself return to smoking, blowing politely away from Kyo, who sipped at his drink. It was almost eerie how easy it felt, like the world where they were rivals was lifetimes gone, lived by some other lonely little boys with someone else’s anger and sadness inside of them. 

After a time, Yuki saw Kyo’s eyes fix on the still-lit cigarette. His voice was low and sincere in its curiosity when he asked, “Why are you doing this? Is university that hard?” He hesitated. “Is it because that girl dumped you? Tohru told me, sorry.”

Yuki didn’t have a good answer to give, because he didn’t have a good reason for doing it. He took a moment, watching the smoldering end of his cigarette lift a trail of smoke into the night. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not really about school, I guess. And it’s not because of Machi. I know it’s bad for me. I just…wanted to be around people more, and smoking makes it easier in a lot of ways.” 

Yuki didn’t mention Kakeru. He wasn’t sure how to explain what they had, what they were, why it was so wrapped up in smoking. Maybe if the two things stayed as one in Yuki’s mind, he could still convince himself that he could quit both if he just concentrated. If he just tried harder, and stopped wondering at impossible things.

_ See you next year _ .

“I’m not saying I, like, get it,” Kyo said slowly when Yuki didn’t go on. “The smoking thing, anyway. I still think it’s pretty gross. But, I mean…we all got bad habits, and do dumb shit.” He furrowed his brow, looking suddenly bashful. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t wanna,” he muttered.

Yuki couldn’t help but think, again, about the angry young boy throwing himself into fights over and over and over again, losing every time, always scrambling and screaming for more. About how losing to Yuki was Kyo’s self-destruction method of choice for years. There were a lot of ways to hurt yourself, Yuki knew. 

Despite the chill, he felt a bloom of warmth for the man next to him now, somehow a grown up person who knew how to say words of comfort to someone who had knocked him into the dirt a thousand times. But it  _ was _ a comfort: the permission to be unsure. He hadn’t realized he still needed it.

The warmth in his chest—the maudlin affection, the surge of relief—was a feeling so soft, it embarrassed Yuki. It must have been New Years, or the booze, unearthing this sentimentality. He felt startlingly old and young all at once then, self-conscious and raw, shivering in the snow. 

To cover his awkwardness, Yuki smirked, like old times. 

“Oh God, are we friends now?” he joked, as if such an idea hadn’t been the source of his most desperate yearning as a child. “I won’t tell Tohru, just in case she goes into shock.”

Kyo rolled his eyes, hiding a smile behind his cup again. “Okay, fuck off then,” he said lightly. “Also, she would.” 

Yuki chuckled, stubbing out the remains of his cigarette. “I suppose we should head back in, huh?” His teeth were chattering at this point. Satiated with smoke, he was finally feeling the cold.

“Yeah,” Kyo said. “Tohru said she was gonna have a drink for the special occasion if you wanna see someone lose it after one sip.”

Once they crossed back inside, Yuki went first to the bathroom to obsessively scrub the smell of tobacco and nicotine from his hands (a routine learned from Kakeru, of course). As he emerged, smelling of milk and honey over smoke, Kyo was there again.

“Did you see Tohru when we came back in?” Kyo asked, looking around, half-concerned. “I don’t know where she went off to…”

“Upstairs, maybe?”

They were halfway up the first set of stairs when Yuki heard a zealous, “ _ Bleugh! _ Oh, oh my  _ gosh! _ ” At the sound, Kyo flinched and took the rest of the stairs two at a time (Yuki rolled his eyes:  _ showoff _ ). They rounded the landing to find Tohru and Rin sitting at the top of the steps with empty shot glasses in their hands. Haru was perched two steps below, filming them on his phone.

“Hey,” he intoned, glancing back at the boys’ shocked expressions. “Cheers.”

“Oh my God,” Kyo said.

“Kyo-kun! You’re back!” Tohru cheered, giddy and completely flushed. The foul-taste look on her face had already vanished and she was practically bouncing where she sat. She gasped when she spotted Yuki behind him. “Oh my gosh! Yuki-kun, you’re all red! Were you two outside in the snow?”

“Just getting some air,” Kyo said before Yuki could even think to panic. They shared a quick glance, a promise made and kept.

“You’re pretty red yourself, Tohru,” Yuki added sheepishly, which made her clap her hands over her cheeks and laugh at herself.

“I guess I am!”

Kyo climbed the rest of the stairs, pushing aside Haru to sit on the step below Tohru and gaze up at her. “What was in these, anyway?” he asked, nodding uneasily at the shot glasses. “I’ve seen half a beer knock you out.”

“Whiskey,” Tohru said, her eyes bright.

“Whoa—”

“I made her do it,” Rin said, her eyes red-rimmed. But she was smiling; a small, tender thing. “So get mad at me, if you want.”

“No, no, Isuzu-san didn’t make me do anything!” Tohru insisted, flapping her hands about. “I wanted to do it! It-it was my idea!”

“Actually,” Haru said, “it was my idea. I thought it would be funny, and it hella was. Wanna see Honda-san’s taking-a-shot face, Yuki?”

Yuki snorted. He dropped onto the step beside Haru and watched the video (“ _Bleugh!_ _Oh, oh my_ _gosh!_ ”), watched as Rin hid a growing smile behind her hand, watched as Kyo smoothed his palm over Tohru’s knee, watched as Tohru’s infectious drunkenness made them all loose and silly and whole and alive.

_ It must be past midnight by now _ , Yuki thought distantly. His heart felt full to bursting, and he decided then that he would do more than just watch this year. He would do so much more than wonder.

-

One day after New Years, Yuki was back at the apartment. 

He found Kakeru on the balcony, wrapped up in two coats and a massive scarf and sunglasses, smoking lazily. He crept silently through the apartment so he could throw open the door to the balcony with wild abandon, just to watch Kakeru jump and yelp. For once, Yuki got the obnoxious drop on  _ him _ .

“Ah, fuck  _ me _ , dude,” Kakeru laughed, the hand holding his cigarette fluttering to his heart. “That was a good one. Fuck you.”

“Fuck you too,” Yuki said brightly. He took the cigarette from Kakeru and took a drag. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year, Yun-Yun.” He stuck his tongue out, pushing the shades on top of his head. “Did you miss me?”

He said it in that stupid, teasing voice; that one that made Yuki’s traitorous brain whisper  _ handsome _ every time, mostly against his wishes. But today, it wasn’t a whisper, and it wasn’t unwelcome.

_ I like you so much _ , Yuki thought. 

“Yes,” Yuki said. “I really did.”

His honesty hushed whatever smart ass remark Kakeru had ready: he looked up at Yuki without bothering to hide his surprise, his mouth just slightly agape. He looked so young, all of a sudden.

“When did it end?” Yuki asked, before he could lose his nerve. “With Komaki-san.”

He was sitting now, heart pounding like nothing else, eyes at the same level as Kakeru’s. Neither of them looked away this time.

“Couple months ago,” Kakeru murmured.

“Why?” 

Kakeru took a drag, their gazes still fixed. “Long distance, Komaki said,” he exhaled. “She said she could tell my heart wasn’t in it anymore. She wasn’t wrong. I…” He trailed off, his brow pulling inward a twitch. “It was mutual, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why do you want to know now?” Kakeru said, asking the real question.  _ Why? Why now? _

A gust of wind blew through, nearly putting the cigarette out; a guttering stream of smoke wafted slowly between them. Yuki slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out Kakeru’s red lighter.

“There are things I’ve been wondering about,” he started slowly, “for a while. Things I told myself were none of my business. About you. And about myself.” 

Yuki’s hands were shaking when he took the cigarette and placed it gently between Kakeru’s lips, and Kakeru let him. He leaned forward, one unsteady hand cupping around the lighter while the other relit the flame. They still hadn’t looked away from each other.

“But I’d rather not live like that,” he breathed. “I don’t want to die wondering.”

Yuki couldn’t tell who started leaning in first. He saw Kakeru take the cigarette out of his mouth like it was happening a mile away, and they were surrounded by an exhale of smoke, and then they were kissing. 

_ Oh _ , Yuki thought, bursting like champagne bubbles, _ so this is how it’s supposed to feel _ . 

**Author's Note:**

> again: kids, don't smoke.


End file.
